The present invention relates to a pneumatic tire, more particularly to a tread pattern capable of exhibiting good ice/snow performance and steering stability.
Studless tires provided with a block-based tread pattern including a large number of sipes are widely used as winter tires exhibiting good ice/snow performance.
In recent years, on the other hand, there is an increased demand for such winter tire exhibiting good ice/snow performance on ice or snow covered road as well as good steering stability on dry pavement.
The ground contacting elements such as blocks in the tread portion of a studless tire have relatively low rigidity due to a large number of the sipes. Therefore, the steering stability of such studless tire is not so good, especially on dry pavement.
In the Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-285035 and the corresponding U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010-0314012-A1, there is disclosed a pneumatic tire having a tread pattern designed to improve snow performance while maintaining steering stability. However, the disclosed pneumatic tire has room for improvement in both of the snow performance and the steering stability.